Before It Breaks Read Online Free PDF Page B

alternatives to murder-robbery. Dieter could have taken it with him in a mate’s car. In fact he could have injured himself on it if the boat capsized. Against that, things about the scene jarred. You could lose your phone in the accident but would you leave keys in the ignition? No, surely even if the battery had already run flat, you’d take the keys. Clement wondered if he should drive out and around to the yet-to-be-pegged crime scene but he was worried about driving over evidence so he was forced to yet again retrace his steps to the other side of the creek. Before leaving he took a swig of water, you could dehydrate fast out here. On the way the flies harassed him again. They bit him this time. He flicked them off as best he could.
    Using the tent as the centre of the target, Clement began searching out in bands of about five metres thick. After around thirty minutes he found an area of flattened bush as if a vehicle had recently been there. He estimated it was about sixty metres northwest of the tent and would not have been visible from it. There was a bush track leading out from there, clearly used by vehicles for access. He’d always approached the creek from the eastern side, as the tourists had, but clearly some regular traffic came this way too. He followed the path for another hundred metres calling out Schaffer’s name over the incessant insect buzz but received no reply and doubled back.
    Gradually he worked his way anti-clockwise around the entire creek. There was the usual kind of litter, chocolate and chip wrappers, plastic bottles, beer cartons. He took photos of everything he encountered. The only piece of recent technology he gave creditto was a phone with a camera in it. So much easier than logging everything with a biro that wouldn’t write on a cheap pad. Karen’s comment needled him. It wasn’t like he was trying to get back with Marilyn. Was he just terrified of another relationship, the unknown?
    The dissolution of their relationship had caught him by surprise even though he supposed it had all the classic pointers. They’d both let it go too far. It was like a DVD on your shelf you look over at every day still in its case, telling yourself tonight was the night you’d watch it. But you never got around to it. There was always something more at hand, more demanding of your time. Until she announced she was leaving, and of course he said that’s ridiculous. That’s how it starts, he thought, the end. Every grievance is dredged out. Pride flares. He offers to move out, the martyr. And before you know it, what is just bravado, a sympathy play, turns into the real thing and when you drag your sorry arse back and apologise, it’s too late, she’s ‘discovered’ herself and how much you’ve ‘inhibited’ her.
    Back to where he started in more ways than one. His phone rang. Mal Gross. One of his mates had family near Dieter’s shack. They’d driven over and taken a gander. Nobody was there. He had di Rivi and Restoff heading there too but he thought the sooner Clement knew, the better. Clement thanked him and looked up to see a swirl of dust announce Shepherd’s arrival. Jared Taylor, the aboriginal police aide, was with him towing the trailer on which was mounted an inflatable boat. A tinny was lashed to the roof as back up. Shepherd stepped out wearing the plastic white-framed sunnies Shane Warne had made famous in the late nineties. They looked ridiculous then and worse now. Shepherd was around one eighty-eight centimetres and fit, the build of a centre-half-back, de rigueur tattoos just poking out from under short sleeves. Jared Taylor was shorter with a gut and, at forty, around twelve years older than Shepherd. Unlike Shepherd, he had a sunny disposition. They’d sparred in the ring once as part of Shepherd’s training for the annual Kimberley v Gascoyne police comp. Naturally Shepherd fancied himself.